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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528637">aperiens</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline'>TomBowline</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>by invitation [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blow Jobs, Coitus Interruptus, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Fantasizing, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Morning Wood, Multi, POV Thomas Jopson, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Service Kink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 06:22:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528637</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An untimely interruption by a certain handsome lieutenant leads Thomas and Francis to some revelations.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Jopson, Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>by invitation [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. in the morning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is the perfect active participle of the Latin verb "aperio", meaning "opening". By rights it should be plural, but I think the singular is punchier.</p><p>This fic and its sequel (coming soon) were written to be part of my post-canon Crozier/Jopson/Little universe, but i decided to have them come together at a different time, so these are their own thing now. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thomas was relieved beyond words to see his captain recovering so handily from such an ordeal as he had undertaken in the past several weeks. His color was returned as close to normal as the biting cold would allow, his eyes sparkled as they had not in years, and his faculties were once again those of the capable and just captain Thomas had come to respect and to love. It was a wonder, truly, and an impossibly good feeling to know it was he who had seen Captain Crozier through it all.</p><p>The mere fact of his captain being well and in higher spirits once again would have been enough for Thomas, by leaps and bounds it would have - but there were also other advantages.</p><p>One such advantage, of a rather intimate nature, made itself known each morning over the course of several weeks following the captain’s full recovery. In the earlier years of their voyage, Francis had often been unable to hold a stand - the sight of Thomas, kissing him, touching him, still brought pleasure to the spirit, he assured him, but the flesh had been weakened by alcohol and age. Now it seemed that with the alcohol gone, age had taken a holiday off as well: invariably, Francis had been afflicted with a stiff prick upon waking. And invariably, Thomas had been only too happy to see to his condition.</p><p>This was one such day. Thomas knocked at the door to the captain’s berth at four bells sharp, was bid <em> Enter </em> in a voice hoarse (he thought) from sleep, and brought in the neatly folded uniform and shaving-set to ready his captain for the coming day.</p><p>The picture before him drove all thoughts of the coming day from his mind. Francis sat on the edge of his bunk, hair still disheveled from sleep, with the outline of his prick just visible where it tented the lap of his nightshirt. A small patch of fluid had soaked through the cotton. <em> Ah, lovely</em>.</p><p>“Undress, please, sir,” Thomas said by way of a good-morning. He smiled at Francis, a small curling of the lips, the sharing of a private understanding.</p><p>Francis colored his dear ruddy pink, but he complied. Off the nightshirt came, and the captain was left naked - chest hairy, heaving, flushed with sleep - nipples drawn in stiff against the chill in the air - hands balled in fists in the sheets, not touching without leave to do so - and quite shamefaced on his bunk, with a prick as hard and eager as Thomas had ever seen.</p><p>What a lovely piece of work was this man. Shamed to be soft, shamed to be hard. Thomas privately thought he ought never be ashamed of that fat ruddy yard he had nestled away so shockingly in the soft downy vee of his thighs. Not when it was such a handsome and impressive tool, not when it brought such pleasure.</p><p>Then again, there was no reason to let on that he thought so. Some men, as Thomas knew intimately well, responded more sweetly to censure than to praise.</p><p>Thomas took in his captain’s cockstand with a disdainful eye. “Obscene of a morning again, I see, sir,” he sighed reprovingly. For all his affected indifference, however, he did not turn from the doorway to move about the berth and the cabin as he typically would. He stood still, stared at Francis steadily, tipped his chin up. Waited.</p><p>Francis’ face flushed further, and his prick twitched where it stood against the soft hairiness of his belly. Another man might not have caught his <em> Yes</em>, so hoarse and quiet it was, but Thomas could never miss it.</p><p>“And shall I do something to improve your condition, sir?”</p><p>Francis only gave a jerky nod in reply, eyes looking anywhere but at Thomas. In barely two steps he was across the cabin and snugged up between his captain’s legs - not quite touching, a calculated distance - gripping his chin gently but firmly to hold his gaze. “You’ll have to speak up, Captain.”</p><p>In the long moment of silence that stretched between them he could feel Francis’ muscles taut less than an inch from his own body, feel his slack mouth and his hot face in his hand.</p><p>Finally: “Please.” It was shaky and low, and spoken with eyes nearly closed, but it would do.</p><p>“Good,” Thomas sighed, sparing a moment to dip his thumb briefly into the corner of Francis’ mouth before going down on his knees with the ease of long employment and swallowing his captain’s prick.</p><p>Francis was wonderfully responsive this morning - had been, in truth, since his recovery. Thomas enjoyed it immensely, this affirmation of the good work he was doing. The little thrusts of hip that necessitated an arm pressed across to still him; the way his thighs would set to twitching and his stones to drawing up at the slightest inducement; the occasional blurt of bitter seed from the tip of him, coating the back of Thomas’ throat - all were proofs of Francis’ health and his own attentiveness. Outwardly strict as he was being with Francis, Thomas reveled in this newfound virility.</p><p>He reveled also in the sounds Francis had never been able to help making, risky as they were - for in his new state of heartiness, far from being more controlled, they seemed lustier still. As he pulled back to focus on Francis’ prickhead, tonguing the hood in little quick motions, he was rewarded with a choked litany of grunts and tender-sounding moans. <em> Oh, lovely</em>, he thought as he took Francis into his throat again; mouth occupied, he stroked a thumb into the tender place between Francis’ thigh and groin to convey this message. He should not encourage it, both according to his role in this passion and for reasons of propriety, but he liked to hear the noises his captain was making for him far too well to really be firm.</p><p>Were it evening, he might draw this out, might make Francis scramble interminably at the edge of orgasm or pull off early and save his captain’s stand to fuck himself on. As it was, Thomas counted ten minutes past the bell already, and felt keenly the need to have Francis dressed and presentable in prompt order - it was best foot forward, now, had to be. So he played his tricks freely, bringing his captain off like he would tug at a wool-end to undo rows of knitting - meticulously and with a frantic breed of purpose.</p><p>Now he licked down Francis’ base and sucked at his balls; now he tongued into his slit and stroked his taint with firm circles; now he dropped his jaw, flattened his tongue, and took him inch by inch ‘til he could reach up to his own neck and feel the captain’s eager yard filling his throat if he pleased. The taste of him, the heady weight, the sound and feel and smell of Francis all around him made Thomas nearly dizzy; he must have been as hard now himself as his lover. He would not take himself in hand, however, would not frig himself at Francis’ feet - how unbecoming, how unseemly that would be for a man so exalted as Thomas felt himself to be when he was with Francis. No, he could wait, and focus on his captain’s pleasure.</p><p>Such pleasure was nearing its zenith now, Thomas could feel it. There was a shake in Francis’ muted cries, and a shake in his soft muscled thighs to match it; besides that Thomas could feel his balls drawing up tight to his base with the hand that was playing over them. Thomas drew back to lave the underside of him with a firm and soaking tongue; the next moment, Francis was flooding his mouth with a long hitched sigh as if he were nursing an ache. The rush of seed, unpleasant as it may have been without context, was to Thomas one more attestation of his captain’s love.</p><p>Thomas drew out a handkerchief to clean Francis’ cock; regarded his pleased countenance with the satisfaction of a job well done. He stood then and reached for the clothes-brush to dust his knees - he was behind schedule already, as was Francis - but was stymied by a firm hand cupping his prick through his trousers. Oh, yes, he might spare but ten minutes more.</p><p>“Would you like something else, sir?” Thomas, with difficulty, gathered himself enough to smile amiably down at Francis.</p><p>“Good Christ, you know I would.” Francis took Thomas by the hips - strong hot hands leaving brands of warmth on skin Thomas had not known was chilled - and hauled him up astride him on the bunk. “I would like <em> you</em>,” with a firm rub over the hard ridge in Thomas’ trousers, “to let me get a hand on your pretty prick.” Thomas nodded, breathed, “Oh, yes, good man,” and the captain’s hand came up to work at his flies—</p><p>There was a knock at the door.</p><p>After nearly ten years as a steward Thomas did not need to bite his lip to keep from swearing, but it was a close thing. He contented himself with a quiet sigh as he stepped gracefully off Francis’ lap and lit upon the nearest and largest article of his uniform to drape across his arm in an attempt at hiding his still-obscene state. He picked up Francis’ nightshirt from the floor and handed it back to him for good measure as he crossed the little room.</p><p>There was a very short list of people who would knock at the door to the captain’s berth before the man had risen for the day. Thomas knew who he would rather it be, at least in his own private fantasies, but it was just as likely to be Mr Blanky, or Captain Fitzjames, or—</p><p>He slid the little door open to regard the face of Lieutenant Little. Wide-eyed, a little stunned-looking, and very red in the face.</p><p>Windburned, possibly. Windburned? Thomas gave him a quick once-over.</p><p>He had on neither slops nor woolens, and no ice was in his whiskers.</p><p>Right then.</p><p>“Lieutenant,” Thomas offered blithely. Then, turning to the Captain, “Lieutenant Little, sir.”</p><p>The good lieutenant did not step inside the berth, however (which may have been a good thing in any case as only so many sailors can pack into one berth regardless of any extant awkwardness). He mumbled something about an urgent stores report, gave a hasty excuse and a tip of his hat, and set off back through the Great Cabin.</p><p>Thomas allowed himself a slightly louder sigh as he shut the door.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. in the evening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It didn’t come up again until the evening. All day they had to carry on as if nothing had happened - what else could they do, with other sailors constantly about and the duties of the day to be seen to? But when they were abed - after the captain’s steward had gone about the ritual of readying his captain for bed in a fashion eminently regular to his profession, then slipped into the bunk beside him most irregularly - Francis turned to regard Thomas and sighed. “He must have heard something, mustn’t he?”</p><p>Thomas nodded, twigging immediately to Francis’ meaning. But— “I don’t believe he’ll tell,” he said slowly, consideringly. “He hasn’t brought it up to you today, has he?” Francis shook his head. “And we would know by now if he had tried to report to Captain Fitzjames.” The Erebus officers had been over for a noon meeting that day, and Thomas knew enough of the other captain to be fairly certain he would bring a concern like this to either Francis, himself, or the collected wardroom (depending on what view he took of the affair) directly and promptly.</p><p>Beside him, Francis gave a quiet chuckle. “<span>Aye, perhaps you’re right. The way Little stares at you, he doesn’t seem like the sort to report a man for dirtiness.</span>”</p><p>This brought Thomas up rather short. Yes, Lieutenant Little was rather eager for his company and seemed to notice his presence rather more than was usual for an officer; yes, one might discern the man to be rather taken with him. Yes, he was a handsome sort, and yes, Thomas had <em> entertained</em>... But. None of it signified, for he was with Francis. He was his captain’s, and happy to be so.</p><p>“Ah, you know I speak truly! Look how you’re blushing.” Thomas cursed his own blood for feeding that last frontier of expression that he could not school into placidity. Nothing for it but honesty, he supposed.</p><p>“I am...aware, I confess.” He had sailed with Francis for almost a decade, now, he reminded himself; nobody could question his loyalty. Still he felt rather as if he were treading on pack-ice during the spring thaw. “I have never given him reason to hope, of course.”</p><p>“But have you never...” Francis paused. “Have you never imagined it? What he would be like.”</p><p>Thomas turned to look at Francis more fully, allowing himself a bit of a reproachful look. He did not enjoy having his fidelity called into question. But then he saw Francis’ face, uncertain and slightly pink; recalled the roughness in his voice. Slowly he slid one leg between both of Francis’ and felt - yes, there it was, that unmistakable solidity twitching against his thigh.</p><p>Thomas softened his aspect now, and fixed Francis with a look deliberate and discerning, pressing him open like a seam to be undone. “Are you asking because you believe I have imagined it?” He punctuated this question with a firm rub over Francis’ prick. “Or because <em> you </em> have imagined it?”</p><p>Francis sighed, rolled his hips into Thomas’ leg. “If you are asking, then you already know.”</p><p>“So tell me.” He wanted to slip a hand between them, slide his captain’s cock from the folds of his nightshirt and feel the heavy pulse of him, but he held off. He wanted to hear, before he would touch. “What would it be like to fuck Lieutenant Little?”</p><p>Francis groaned - thrust his hips up - opened and closed his mouth, soundless. Thomas was more than happy to initiate.</p><p>“Would you have him under the table in the Great Cabin? Feed him your prick while you plot our course?” He did reach down then to touch teasingly at Francis’ cock, just to offer some encouragement. “He would go on his knees for you so beautifully, Francis.”</p><p>“Christ, yes,” Francis sighed. “And you’d be there standing by - telling him just what to do.”</p><p>Thomas’ own prick, which had been filling out lazily over the past few minutes, suddenly took a keener interest. He would walk about the pair of them, kneel down and stroke Little’s neck to feel his captain’s prick in his lieutenant’s throat. He would hand down orders: <em> Touch his stones. Let him feel you moan, but quietly. Hand off your prick, now. </em> Perhaps he would slip his hand into Little’s trousers, give him a reward for such exemplary service.</p><p>“Oh, he would be wonderfully biddable for you, Thomas.” Francis sighed expansively. “All he wants is a firm hand.” To punctuate this statement he brought a hand up to grasp Thomas’ shaft in return, pulling him to a full stand with shocking speed.</p><p>Thomas gasped. He knew it, perhaps even more than Francis did. When the captain was abed that winter, he had seen how pained Little seemed to be in command - how relieved he was to follow the advice of the doctors, Fitzjames, or even Thomas himself. He could almost see before him the way the tension left Little’s face when Thomas would suggest, as firmly as his rank allowed, a proper course of action in such cases as Little was divided over. The effect on him then had been simple relief, a comfort at having been able to ease the lieutenant’s mind. The effect now was— more visceral. As Francis slid his rope-rough fingers back to brush intently over Thomas’ hole, Thomas imagined with a rush of pulsing pleasure Little doing the same, imagined telling the lieutenant exactly how to please him best. <em> Two fingers, now, </em> he would say, and <em> Yes, just so</em>. And Little would melt beneath such praise, he felt certain of it.</p><p>As Thomas reached behind himself to retrieve the tin of wool-grease, he picked up the thread of fantasy where Francis had left it off. “He would be lovely and pliable between us both.” Pressing the tin into Francis’ waiting hand, fighting a lovely little battle between the tautness of arousal and the relaxation such acts necessitated as he was breached. “With your prick in his arse and mine in his mouth. Begging to be filled.” He gasped as Francis’ finger twitched within him and brushed over that spot in his passage that set his blood to singing.</p><p>“Mmm.” Francis was nuzzling low on Thomas’ neck now; his stubble burned where it brushed Thomas’ collarbone, his lips were soft and searching on his skin. “We’d fill him up, take him apart.” He bit down - not high enough to be visible, Thomas had him trained too well for that, but daringly close. “Make him ours.”</p><p>“He is so—” Thomas gasped, prick dripping seed as Francis pushed in a second finger. “The way he moves. He would ride you so well, love.” His head was full of conjured images, then - Edward’s thighs, thick with hair and working powerfully about Francis’ waist; Edward’s arsehole, likewise furred, tight and twitching around Francis’ prick. What a sight it would be, his two officers (for Francis was his, and he was sure Edward would be only too happy to join him) working for their pleasure.</p><p>They lapsed into kissing and silence then as Thomas shuffled them about the bunk so he could sit on his captain’s thick eager cockstand. But once he was through it, once he was sat with his hands cupping Francis’ tits and Francis’ balls twitching against his arsecheeks, sighing as he adjusted to that most welcome of intrusions - Francis spoke again.</p><p>“Do you think you could take us both at the same time?” His voice was low and cracked at the edges, but he wore a crooked delinquent grin in the low light of the cabin. He brought his greased hand up to cup Thomas’ arsecheek and kept it there as Thomas began rolling his hips shallowly - fingers dipping into his crack, spreading him apart, tracing over his stretched rim. Thomas gasped once more, choking back a louder sound; the combined result of Francis’ actions and his words was a feeling of dizzying exposure that affected Thomas more than he liked to let on. To be so laid open, made so loose and so full - he could only imagine it.</p><p>“I could,” he whispered, conviction running strong and fast in his low voice. “I would have you open me with your tongue first—” Sitting up so far that his hole was just clutching at the head— “And when you were fucking into me—” Grinding back down so Francis’ cock thrust up sharp and deep inside him— “Then I would have him put his fingers in alongside.” A pointed roll of his hips; Francis left off momentarily to gather more wool-grease, and returned to press eager and unyielding into the slick band of Thomas’ rim. He had a look of concentration about him, now; face inflamed with desire, mouth slack, eyes sharply focused as he coaxed Thomas further open.</p><p>Francis let loose a quiet gasp as the tip of one finger slipped into Thomas at last; wet his lips, fucked up harder against Thomas’ rolls down. The sensation drove Thomas wild. It was not often he had taken anyone larger than his captain, to begin with; and now to have prick and fingers both inside him, rubbing up against each other and sending sparks through his whole body with each incidental brush over that spot inside him - not only that, but to imagine Little’s cock in him beside the captain’s - the pleasure was incandescent, unearthly, almost overwhelming.</p><p>Thomas bent down to hide his moans in Francis’ mouth, kissing him as if he might be thus kept from flying clear apart. Indeed, as he felt the heat of his captain’s soft mouth under his own and scented his cologne of shaving soap and musk, he felt more grounded - less liable to moan aloud, or burst into spontaneous flame. He could focus now on the whole of the sensation, the pure indecent joy of being fucked, and let it carry him off.</p><p>When Francis spoke again his tone was almost meditative, but his voice was breathy and ground down to about an octave lower than usual. This, along with the twitching of his belly against Thomas’ cock and the clenching of his thighs beneath Thomas’ arse, told him that his captain was close to the crisis. “And after we’d both fucked you— Perhaps he’d offer to clean you up.”</p><p>Thomas clamped down hard, rolled his hips faster. He was chasing it, now, for the both of them. “Yes,” he nodded, “I think he might. Think he’d love to suck you both out of my hole. He’d take his captain’s seed any way he could.”</p><p>Francis gasped - seized Thomas’ hip hard with his free hand - fucked up hard as he emptied himself into Thomas with two fingers still in beside his prick. Thomas found his attention divided: half reveling in the sensation of that hot fullness, half admiring the way his captain screwed his keen eyes shut and threw his head back to expose the sturdy corded expanse of his neck as he came. Lord, but he loved him. How he did.</p><p>“Christ,” Francis sighed at last, and drew his fingers from Thomas with a sucking sound that had his face flushing and Thomas’ prick twitching. “You do know how to talk, Thomas.” He wrapped his hand round Thomas’ cock then, still wet with grease and spend. It was this, this combination of gruff praise and filth and seed still trailing hot from Thomas’ hole where Francis’ cock grew soft, that had him finally twitching up into climax.</p><p>He came like being struck by lightning, like being swept under a wave. Francis milked him through it, petting his flank and likewise his cock until Thomas batted his hand away and collapsed on top of him. There was a sticky mess between them and half-inside of Thomas that would need to be seen to momentarily; he had to let it lie, for he was quite too wrung out to move.</p><p>He resolved as he lay pillowed on Francis’ broad chest, breathing him in and letting his back be brushed up and down by his hand, that he would not mention Little again unless Francis did. They had had a nice time spinning fantasies tonight, but he did not want to appear overly interested in the lieutenant, particularly since the conversation had started by mention of Little’s attraction to him. This was enough, and more than - he would not risk it for another.</p><p>It was just as he had reached this verdict that Francis spoke in a rumbling whisper that Thomas felt before he heard. “I think we ought to have a conference with Lieutenant Little tomorrow.”</p><p>Thomas buried his smile in a kiss to Francis’ sternum. “I agree entirely, my dear.”</p>
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